Dodgers Opinion: LA and the Phillies are Playing a Different Kind of “Moneyball”– and it Works

PHILADELPHIA — Sorry, Miles Mikolas. Checkbook baseball works. The Cardinals starter (himself on a high payroll team) snarked early last year about the Dodgers playing “checkbook baseball,” supposedly buying the success that they could not build on their own. But if you look toward Philadelphia tonight, you’ll see two of biggest payrolls in baseball slugging it out on the biggest stage. And Miles Mikolas is somewhere playing golf.

Let’s be honest about what we are all watching this week. It is not a morality play about thrift and pluck. It is the two deepest, most expensive rosters in the National League meeting with a ticket to the next round on the line. Los Angeles vs. Philadelphia is a reminder of something critics hate to admit but the standings keep shouting. Spending works.

Look around the bracket. Four of the five biggest payrolls sit in the middle of the title picture: Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, Cubs. The outlier is the Mets, who missed October because they are the Mets, not because they tried to buy talent. That club spent, whiffed on fit, and still muddled around .500. A cautionary tale about decision making, not about investment itself.

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Contrast the broad reality with the nostalgia that swirls every time payroll comes up. People invoke an imagined past where patience and plucky prospects topple the giants of free agency. That is a comforting story for owners who love profit more than parades. It is also a dodge. This is not the 1970s, when George Steinbrenner buried the league by outspending it by a canyon. Competitive balance taxes, revenue sharing, and front offices filled with quants have closed the gap. Smart teams spend big and still need to be smart. You cannot just throw cash at every problem and expect confetti. You also cannot cut corners and expect a ring.

Which brings us to the Dodgers and Phillies. Both organizations draft and develop well. Both trade aggressively. Both write checks. That three-part plan is the modern formula. See a hole. Choose the best tool to fix it. Sometimes the answer is a rookie who costs league minimum. Sometimes the answer is Shohei Ohtani, Trea Turner, Tyler Glasnow, Bryce Harper, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Zack Wheeler. Championships are won by accumulating surplus value, not by limiting yourself to one pipeline.

Spending does more than buy stars. It raises your floor, protects you from injuries, and shortens your losing streaks. The Dodgers entered the year with enough rotation names to field a small convention. A bunch got hurt. Others needed time. The reason the season did not cave in during June and July is simple. Depth cost money, and Los Angeles paid it. Philadelphia did the same with its bullpen and lineup depth, which is why they rarely faceplant even when a middle-of-the-order bat goes cold for a week.

You can see it in how these clubs manage a series. If a starter scuffles in the third, the next option is a former top prospect or an eight-figure reliever who misses bats. If a hitter tweaks a hamstring, the bench features someone who would start for a dozen other teams. That margin is not an accident. It is payroll in action.

People will point to the Brewers or Rays and say you do not need to spend. Those teams are outliers, and they still spend relative to their market constraints. Also, they almost never finish the job. Cute stories are fun in May. Parades happen in November. Moneyball gave us great cinema and some smart process ideas. The lesson is not that payroll is irrelevant. The lesson is that the A’s did not win.

Even though we don’t like to give our neighbors to the south much credit for anything, San Diego is a better case study for what money can do. For years the Padres were a punch line. New ownership decided to act like a big-market team in a sneaky-big market. The city woke up. Petco Park turned into a destination. The roster could take a punch and still make noise because there were experienced hitters and hard-throwing arms tucked behind every corner. Did it guarantee a title? Of course not. Did it transform the franchise’s relevance and give them repeated cracks at October? Absolutely. That is what spending buys you: more bites at the apple, more chances for baseball’s randomness to tilt your way.

Every city could do this. Some refuse. The Pirates are the most glaring example. That fan base deserves better than one star at a time and an annual payroll that cowers under $100 million when media and revenue sharing checks cover the bills before a ticket is sold. Paul Skenes is an ace in waiting. He should not have to wait. A free-spending owner would make PNC Park a madhouse and build a staff around him that terrifies the division. Instead we get sermons about sustainability while the standings say eighth place.

High payrolls are not a betrayal of the farm system. They are a complement. The Dodgers still promoted kids this year and found contributions in unexpected places. The Phillies still polish depth options in Triple A and swing development changes that turn role players into weapons. The difference is that both clubs have the resources to supplement their pipelines with established elite talent. That blend is why they are here and why most of the game is chasing them.

There is another piece critics miss. Spending is a promise to your fans that their emotional investment will be matched by financial investment. You want full houses and record TV ratings, right? Then meet supporters halfway. Give them reasons to buy jerseys and take their kids to the ballpark. Put MVPs, Cy Young candidates, and human highlight reels in your uniform. The Dodgers will draw four million because they keep delivering attractions and wins. That is not an accident. It is a business plan.

Back to the series. Los Angeles and Philadelphia are case studies in how to deploy a large budget. The Dodgers built a top-heavy star core, then layered in versatile veterans and a bullpen with multiple elite-leverage options. The Phillies did the same while also leaning into left-handed power and adding rotation thunder. These teams look similar because the path to serious contention is not a mystery. Identify impact players, pay them, and keep adding until your weakest link is better than most clubs’ fifth-best option.

Critics love to sneer that you cannot buy chemistry. True, in the same way you cannot buy luck or health. You can, however, buy a lot of players who drive winning in repeatable ways, and you can buy enough of them that a slump or an injury does not end your season. You can buy managers and coaches the flexibility to make the right tactical decision instead of the only decision. You can buy the margin for error that separates elite teams from hopeful ones.

If you are still clinging to the idea that a homegrown-only build is purer, ask yourself who benefits from that purity. It is not you. It is not your city. It is the billionaire who pockets the difference between a $90 million roster and a $250 million one while preaching patience. You did not sign up to be patient. You signed up to watch your team win.

The Dodgers and Phillies will settle this on the field, not on a balance sheet. One series can turn on a hanging slider, a bad hop, or a call on the edge. None of that changes the larger truth that payroll is a competitive tool, and the teams most serious about winning use it aggressively. Getting good players does not guarantee a parade. Refusing to get them almost always condemns you to also-ran status.

So cheer for your prospects. Love the stories of late-round gems who make it big. Then hold your owner to the standard that the best in the sport have set. Spend to the level of your market and your ambition. Follow the evidence, not the fairy tales. The clubs with stars stacked across the diamond are still playing. The ones that hugged their budgets are shopping for golf clubs.

Checkbook baseball is not a sin. It is a strategy. When smart people run it, it looks a lot like October.

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